Kasia Turajczyk - Much Ado About My Art

"I’ve often heard people say: ‘I wonder what it would feel like to be on board a spaceship,’ and the answer is very simple. What does it feel like? That’s all we have ever experienced. We are all astronauts on a little spaceship called Earth." - R. Buckminster Fuller I am taking part in an exhibition entitled From Cowboys to Astronauts . It takes place at The Enviro Hub, Devon Contract Waste in Exeter, from Monday, April 20 till May 24 2015. We, the artists from Devon, present objects, installations, visual art, etc., made from waste. The meaning of it is to promote the concept of a circular economy – a regenerative economic system where materials and energy from products are recovered and put back into the system instead of simply being disposed of. The initiative for this exhibition came from the  Centre for Alternative Materials and Remanufacturing Technologies (CALMARE) , a business technology centre partly funded by the ERDF, based at the University of Exeter.

My devotion to Pinocchio is not a secret. I have always loved the character from the book by Carlo Collodi, I loved Disney's Pinocchio, I love the Russian Pinocchio and I love my two Pinocchio toys. They have travelled with me around the world; they are very old and wise. Made in Russia, they came from Russia to me. They are old, probably 50 and 45 years old. They are aging, one of them has lost his hair, and unfortunately also his nose. Since I was introduced to Pinocchio's character I have always been painting and drawing this wonderful marionette.  Pinocchio willy-nilly was becoming a hero of my work. My first portrait of Pinocchio I made in oil on canvas;  very expressionistic, with fat, large strokes of brush paint.  It is kind of a dark painting. The next was lighter, brighter, finer, with spell of impressionistic touch.  The series Return of Peter Pan also has a Pinocchio theme. Two brothers sitting close to each other and talking. Pinocchio's Brothers